Election 2012: Campaigns, Coverage & the Internet
From smear campaigns on Twitter to owning a domain before the opposition does to constituent hangouts on Google+, social media and the web have changed the election process for good. Candidates rely on social media to get their message out on their terms, journalists report and react to the story as it happens, and social platforms help to galvanize public opinion, support volunteers and solicit donations. With viewpoints from journalists, scholars, and campaign practitioners, this panel will reflect on the 2012 presidential campaign and how new media has made its mark. Specifically, the panel will look at which online platforms are performing the best in the 2012 election, the convergence of new and traditional mediums on the campaign trail, and analyze how campaigns are using these tools to promote their issue platforms and candidates, successfully or not.
Presenters
Claudia Milne is the editor of the North American edition of BBC.com. She previously worked as the deputy editor on BBC World News America, and was the Washington senior producer for BBC Newsnight. Originally from London she has worked in the US for seven years
Micah L. Sifry is co-founder and editorial director of Personal Democracy Media, which produces the annual Personal Democracy Forum conference and the news site techPresident.com, looking at all the ways technology is changing politics, government and civic life. He is also a senior adviser to the Sunlight Foundation, which he helped found in 2006, and serves on the board of Consumer Reports. He is the author or editor of six books, most recently Wikileaks and the Age of the Transparency (OR Books, 2011), and in the spring of 2012 he will be teaching at Harvard’s Kennedy School on "The Politics of the Internet."
Michael Scherer is the White House correspondent for TIME. He previously worked for Salon.com, Mother Jones, and the Daily Hampshire Gazette. A native of San Francisco, he graduated from U.C. Santa Cruz and Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
Teddy Goff is the Digital Director for President Obama’s 2012 campaign.
Before joining the campaign, Teddy served as Associate Vice President for Strategy at Blue State Digital, a full-service digital agency that develops and executes multi-channel marketing and direct-response campaigns for nonprofits, campaigns, and brands. In this capacity, he oversaw the account managers and creative teams servicing more than 75 active engagements across the globe, and personally managed programs for Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Partners In Health, Carnegie Hall, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, among others.
Teddy joined BSD from President Obama's 2008 campaign, where he directed all state-level new media campaigns, overseeing everything from email and blog programs to online organizing strategies in more than 25 battleground states. During the primaries, he helped lead President Obama's mass email team, writing and editing fundraising, recruitment, and messaging emails and developing communications and segmentation plans. Between the campaign and BSD, Teddy worked for the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition Project, where he oversaw the creation and launch of the Obama Administration's new WhiteHouse.gov.
A native of New York City, Teddy graduated from Yale University with degrees in English and Political Science.
Zeynep Tufekci is an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina and a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. Her research revolves around the interaction between technology and social, cultural and political dynamics. Tufekci is particularly interested in collective action and social movements, complex systems, surveillance, privacy, and sociality. Her research on the Arab uprisings has been featured in many media outlets as well as being published in peer-reviewed outlets. She blogs at www.technosociology.org.
Sunday, March 11
